Fiber reinforced plastic (FRP) articles of manufacture are used in various applications wherein the article must be lightweight and also resistant to corrosion, decay, rust and the like. Such articles can be used to replace articles made from conventional materials such as steel, aluminum and wood. Such FRP articles typically use a thermosetting resin matrix in one form or another.
FRP articles can be made by various methods known in the art, including but not limited to pultrusion, contact and open molding, resin transfer molding (RTM), injection molding, structural reaction injection molding (S-RIM), compression molding and filament winding. Such articles often need to be colored to be suitable for end use, for example, for aesthetic reasons. Coloration is often achieved by painting, gel coating and powder coating. However, such after coloration is time consuming and requires an extra, often messy, step in the manufacturing process.
A solution to avoid these subsequent coloration processes is to add color to the thermosetting resin matrix. When adding color to the resin, the colorant must be evenly distributed throughout the resin matrix. Any color that is not on the surface is wasted. Additionally, the colorant can adversely affect the properties of the resin such as cure rate.
Thus it would be desirable to provide a colored reinforced article of manufacture which does not require a subsequent coloration step.
It would also be desirable to provide a color reinforced article of manufacture which obviates the wasting of sometimes expensive colorant when the colorant is in the resin matrix.
It would also be desirable to provide a color reinforced article of manufacture having a substantially even distribution of color over the entire surface of the article.